


Mortifying Ordeal

by hedgebear



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Fluff, Cabin Fic, M/M, MAG 160 Spoilers, Self Loathing, Trans Martin, author is trans and fat, basically i've never related more to a character than i do to martin knives blackwood, discussion of dysphoria and dysmorphia, jon is soft actually, loving use of the archivist's compulsion, martin's backstory, mentions of suicidal ideation, so this is pretty much my own feelings about myself and stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23906125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgebear/pseuds/hedgebear
Summary: Martin had a lot of time to himself to think, when Jon had been in his coma, enviably unaware of the strange mechanisms that worked around him. He’d always thought a lot--a product of being both introverted and constantly anxious, which left him worrying and fretting and generally lost in his own head. But with the Lonely pressing in on him, and the loss of his friends still so stark in his mind, it was hard to keep his thoughts from turning to dark places.Luckily, Jon is there to help him See.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 10
Kudos: 148





	Mortifying Ordeal

**Author's Note:**

> TW for: suicidal ideation, self-loathing, body image issues, internalized fatphobia, discussions of gender dysphoria, and Jon using his powers to compel Martin to look at him and to speak. This is just 3.5k of me just projecting all over poor Martin.

Martin had a lot of time to himself to think, when Jon had been in his coma, enviably unaware of the strange mechanisms that worked around him. He’d always thought a lot--a product of being both introverted and constantly anxious, which left him worrying and fretting and generally lost in his own head. But with the Lonely pressing in on him, and the loss of his friends still so stark in his mind, it was hard to keep his thoughts from turning to dark places. Places where he’d not been since he was a teenager, where the world was better off without him in it and nothing seemed bleaker than waking up the next day.

It’s with Jon safely in bed, tucked away in Daisy’s little cabin under a charmingly faded plush quilt, that Martin lets himself see a _point_ in all of this. Not because Jon is there--it’s lovely, of course, but Martin decided a long time ago that he needed to live for himself. No more tethering his own well-being to that of the people he loved. It wasn’t fair to them, and it certainly wasn’t fair to Martin himself, when he knew what he needed was to find his value independent of other people and what he could do for them.

And yet.

He also doesn’t want to let himself quite believe in this. Somehow, the idea that Jon wants him-- _l_ _oves_ him, L-word and all--is far harder and more painful to wrap his head around than those awful gods or blighted horrors he knows lurk so close beneath the surface of everything he considers normal. 

Martin swallows a sudden lump in his throat and reaches out to run his fingers tenderly through Jon’s rapidly greying hair, brushing a lock of it from his face and tracing around those awful, faded pock scars. How one man could be so beautiful is a mystery he doesn’t think he’ll ever solve. Because Jon _is_. Even beaten and bloody, defeated, riddled with agony and guilt, scarred inside and out, even with those bags under his scared, sharp eyes--Jon is beautiful. And that scares Martin more deeply than any monster.

It had been _so_ easy to pine after Jon. Well--no, not easy. It had hurt like a bitch, knowing that Jon was so disdainful of him when all Martin wanted to do was please him, but at least it was a familiar pain. He’d known where he stood and he was happy enough to love from afar. It was almost nicer to have unrequited crushes, really, and Martin had long suspected that his hands-off preference was the reason he fell so hard for the most unavailable people. Because with a crush that had no hope of being returned, he could idealize and fantasize and yearn as much as he wanted without having to be perceived in return. 

He lets out a little huff of laughter at the quote that comes unbidden to his mind. _If you want to enjoy the rewards of being loved, you also have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known._ Martin knew it had become a sort of joke, of course. No matter what Tim says--used to say--he _does_ have some cultural awareness. But it is achingly true, and he remembers the taste of salt he’d gotten in the back of his throat when he’d first read the quote in that little anthology of love stories he’d picked up from the one-pound bin. He laughs to himself again as he mentally capitalizes the ‘k’ in _being Known_. Being Known was a terrifying prospect, and it is suddenly very, very real. Uncomfortably real. Jon’s eyes--his Eyes--whatever--they Saw Martin, now more than ever.

Martin stops laughing.

👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️👁️

Martin’s first real love was Jacob. He was so charming, all smiles and freckles and warmth, and incredibly gay. Back then Martin hadn’t known he was trans, still thought of himself as a woman and wrote off his extreme discomfort with the thought as internalized misogyny and disgust at his own weight, and Jacob being gay was the perfect amount of inavailability that Martin couldn’t have resisted if he’d tried.

They’d met in secondary school and become fast friends, best friends, and Martin craved and cherished every point of contact between them. Every brush of their hands, every affectionate glance, every text or invitation sent a deliciously unrealistic pang of longing through him. He’d relished the yawning loneliness he’d felt when Jacob started dating Mark, because he’d known how to keep that to himself. Even as his confessions felt like they’d push their way violently past his lips sometimes when he sat and watched Jacob play video games, he sat comfortably in his one-sided adoration, and he’d loved Jacob for it when he finally drifted away to spend more time with his actual boyfriend.

Then was Oriole.

He made the mistake of stuttering over his questions and asking Oriole if that was their real name or not, and the annoyed look he’d gotten was enough to cement his feelings.

But Oriole had been different. Sharper than Jacob, more sure of themself and just a little more available. Available enough that Martin had eventually found himself dating them, against all impossible odds, and he’d loved that, too. Oriole had once told Martin that he loved with every part of himself, and that if he wasn’t careful he’d bleed it all out on the wrong person. Martin had sighed dreamily and said _I hope so_.

It was with Oriole that he’d learned to explore his gender. He bought himself a binder, sending it to Oriole’s flat just in case his mother saw it somehow, and he’d started slowly accumulating the button-downs and sweaters he needed to cultivate his cozy, bookish style. And, for the first time in a very long time, Martin hadn’t hated what he saw in the mirror.

It still took him six months to take off his shirt in front of them. It took another four after that to undress all the way, and another two to let them touch him. Oriole seemed okay with it; they seemed content with Martin taking charge, getting them off with his mouth and hands and sometimes their toys, and never really offered to reciprocate. Martin relished the slight sting of that small rejection, expected but no less painful. 

He knew he wasn’t attractive, and certainly wasn’t _sexy_ . He could perhaps be generously described as ‘cute,’ but it’s not as though anyone would _desire_ him, not in the way he sometimes ached for. He wasn’t fat in the smooth, nice way he saw in those infrequent plus-size ads. Martin looked in the mirror and saw, he thought, an unpleasant but somewhat convenient reality of a man with too little body hair and too many fat rolls and an untenably curvy set to his hips and unwanted chest, and he’d thought it was for the best that no one had to look at him too closely. Even once he’d finally had top surgery, replaced the awful heaviness of his breasts with tender pink scars, he’d seen no reason not to be disgusted with himself.

Oriole left him two years later for a wonderfully tall, sweet-faced man from Calcutta, who had been so overwhelmingly desirable and all-around lovely in a way that Martin just _wasn’t_ that he couldn’t even bring himself to be bitter. Instead he’d smiled, wished them the best, and gone home to cry into the pillow that used to be Oriole’s. And that had been that.

The job at the Archives was good for him. He padded his resume, of course he did, and he was rather proud of himself for the calm confidence with which he answered all of the hiring manager’s questions. He’d even been able to ignore the prickling dread of being watched on the back of his neck, and when he started work amongst the other bookish sorts that populated the Magnus Institute, it had been so very easy to make friends. Well. Friendly acquaintances. It’s not as though Martin were invited out to drinks with the lads, and the slight offset from everyone else, that lingering, familiar ache in his sternum of being not-quite-wanted, was so intoxicatingly familiar that he let himself sink into it like a hot bath.

And then Jon, cranky, frazzled, and with a tongue almost as sharp as his gaze. Martin had fallen instantly. He could have cried with relief when his mugs of tea were met with harsh glares and snappish dismissals. Sometimes he did cry. And it was _good_. He loved Jon so fiercely, let it consume him and fill his thoughts as he stared after Jon, jumped to do his bidding, tried desperately to please and impress him to no avail. It was his favorite flavor of rejection, sitting sweet and bitter on his tongue when Jon made some scathing remark about Martin hardly being able to read, or dress himself, or talk on the phone to subjects, or any number of the other things Martin bungled on a regular basis. That was comfortable.

So when Jon had started paying attention to him, he’d panicked a bit. First the unexpected kindness of the offer to let him stay in the Archives, after the worms had surrounded Martin’s flat. Then the cracks in that stern exterior that had begun in that closet during Jane Prentiss’ assault, where Martin got to see a tantalizing peek of vulnerability, and his adoration intensified tenfold. And as Jon started sharing more of himself, mostly by accident as a hazard of coming slightly unhinged in the wake of the Prentiss incident, Martin felt himself fall deeper and deeper, into a love he almost drowned in for the lack of an outlet.

He hadn’t expected Jon to come for him, in the Lonely. Hadn’t wanted him to. He’d gone with Peter willingly, let himself be subsumed by the horrible, satisfying pain of being useful to other people and nothing more. He’d let himself detach. Sometimes Martin couldn’t help but resent Jon, just a little, for reaching through that fog and Seeing him. Uncovering the bits of Martin that no one else ever got to see and gazing into them with those eyes that had become more fathomless by the day. It scared him.

Martin’s long musings were finally interrupted by a soft groan from Jon, who cracked one eye open to squint at Martin through the weak morning sunlight filtering in through the curtains.

“Stop thinking so loud,” Jon mumbled, reaching clumsily for Martin in the half-darkness, and Martin didn’t try to cover his helpless smile as he obliged.

“Sorry,” he said softly, a bit of humor in his voice. “I didn’t realize the Beholding let you hear my brain, as well.”

“It doesn’t work like that and you know it,” Jon fussed, still a bit sleepily, pulling Martin insistently closer and nuzzling into the crook of his arm with a sigh. “I just know when you’re working yourself up over something. Lowercase ‘k.’”

Martin laughed at that, heaving himself up from the armchair he’d been sitting in to pet Jon’s hair, and nudged Jon over a bit to slip under the quilt beside him.

“Then I’ll do my best to stop that,” he said tenderly into Jon’s temple, wrapping an arm around Jon’s too-skinny waist.

“See that you do,” Jon groused, though Martin didn’t miss the playful tilt of his lips as he leaned up for a kiss. “Come here.”

“Yes, boss,” Martin teased, laughing, and something inside him burst into a thousand butterflies as their lips met with deliberate sweetness. It took him a long time to pull away.

“Jon?”

Jon blinked up curiously, looking so much younger without his glasses or the usual furrow between his brow. Martin drew a deep breath as he looked slightly to the left of Jon’s eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

That seemed to catch Jon a bit off-guard, and he arched one doubtful eyebrow.

“Whatever for?” he asked, his tone a bit dry.

“For--well. For this. For, er, for me.” Martin paused, swallowed that ever-present little golf ball of emotion lodged in his windpipe. “I realize that I’ve...rather trapped you here. With me. No privacy to speak of, and I know I’m not exactly the most interesting person to spend lots of time with alone, and it’s not as though I’m much use since you don’t need to eat or drink anything I know how to make anymore. So I’m sorry, I suppose, for. For this,” he finishes awkwardly, waving his hand vaguely around them at the cabin as he hunches his shoulders a bit and continues avoiding Jon’s piercing gaze.

For his part, Jon lets Martin speak. Hears him out, his eyes trained unflinchingly on Martin’s face, and when he’s done he doesn’t jump at the chance to reassure him or dismiss Martin’s apology. He almost cries again in gratitude for that.

“Martin. You needn’t be useful to be a valuable presence,” he says after a long moment of gathering his thoughts, and Martin sees Jon’s lips press together in that way they do when he’s working out something complicated. “You haven’t tricked me. You haven’t forced me. You--hm. Frankly, you’ve shown me more kindness than...than perhaps my past treatment of you has called for,” he adds, looking a bit guilty himself for just a brief second. “I want you here.”

Martin can’t stop the tears, this time, and they surprise him with their intensity as he feels the first ugly sobs claw their way out of his throat. Jon looks alarmed as fat tears start rolling down Martin’s cheeks, and he pushes himself upright, that furrow back between his brows as he flutters awkwardly like he doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands.

“Sorry,” Martin chokes out again, a watery laugh escaping him even as his diaphragm contracts painfully with another convulsive gasp. “Sorry, sorry, I don’t--just give me a moment,” he manages, pushing himself up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed so he can go let his sudden pang of emotion pass safely on the other side of the bathroom door. Cold, thin fingers on his wrist stop him, though he doesn’t look back at Jon’s face.

“Martin,” he whispers, and it’s so unbearably soft that Martin barely suppresses a little wail of despair from deep in his chest. “Martin, look at me. **Look at me**.”

The compulsion drags his head around, and he looks. Jon looks so _worried_ , so tender and caring. More tears pour from him silently as he forces himself to keep looking at Jon, keep staring into those sharp, tired brown eyes that have Seen him. And his breath strangles around a whimper of fear at that ordeal of being Known.

“Martin,” Jon says again, and Martin doesn’t know how long it’s been, doesn’t know how long he’s sat petrified and whimpering in the wake of Jon’s gaze. “I love you.”

That’s what finally tears the audible bawl of pain from him as he shakes his head violently enough that his glasses slip down his nose, bringing the hand not held in place by Jon’s loose grip up to wipe snot from his face as he tears himself away. The heartbreak in Jon’s voice hurts a hundred times more than his own ever did.

“I love you,” he whispers again, and pulls Martin close, coaxes his head to lie at an awkward angle on Jon’s shoulder, and Martin hates himself for the way his fingers dig desperately into Jon’s too-loose Oxford sweatshirt.

It takes nine minutes for the horrible tightness in his lungs to subside, which he knows because he stares at the clock over Jon’s shoulder as he waits for his traitorous sobs to stop shaking him every few breaths.

“Back with me?” Jon says quietly after Martin’s breathing finally evens out, and he nods against Jon’s shoulder.

“Sorry,” he murmurs again, trying for a smile and finding one, somehow, that feels reassuring on his face. “Just a lot, you know? With all of this. Didn’t expect to be sucked into a literal horror movie,” he adds, his usual nervous jovialness forced into his voice.

“Please don’t apologize,” Jon says, and Martin feels a tight tug in his chest. “I’m sorry I hadn’t noticed. Before. That you were struggling,” he adds awkwardly, clearing his throat a bit and pulling away to look at Martin properly. “And I’m sorry on behalf of whomever told you that you aren’t worthy of love.”

Martin clenches his jaw, his pasted-on smile faltering, and looks at Jon’s ear again instead of his face. “No one told me that, Jon,” he says softly. “I just--I wish you’d ended up here with someone better. Someone who knew how to be loved back, who was funny or attractive or smart enough to keep up with you. You deserve that.”

Jon is silent for so long that Martin sneaks a glance, only to find those bottomless pupils fixed on him with an intensity that makes gooseflesh erupt down his arms.

“Regardless of what I deserve,” he says finally, clearly selecting his words with great precision, “I reserve the right to choose this. You are here and I am here, and I--I do believe that you are all those things. You are kind and funny and braver than anyone I’ve ever met. And you are fiercely smart in the ways a parapsychology degree could never have gotten you,” he adds, a tinge of humor in his voice. 

“And you are...so beautiful, Martin,” Jon breathes, reaching up to wipe another tear off of Martin’s flush-mottled cheek and looking a bit emotional himself as he presses his lips together again. “Exactly as you are.”

Martin chokes out a laugh that’s a bit harsher than he meant it to be, somehow unable to look away from Jon’s eyes despite every instinct screaming for him to.

“You already have me, Jon. You don’t need to lie about that, I’m not fragile.”

“I didn’t say you were,” Jon says, a hint of sharpness in his voice that makes Martin cringe a little. “I said that you are beautiful, and I meant it.” He softens slightly, rubbing his thumb over Martin’s bottom lip. “How do I convince you of that? How do I make you believe me, Martin? I. Want. _You._ No one else. You. In ways I--I never really have, before.” Jon flushes a bit at that, the tips of his ears going wonderfully pink, but he masks it by slipping into his severe Archivist expression that makes Martin’s stomach swoop. “Tell me you understand.”

Martin chokes on it, the words lost in his throat, and he shakes his head dumbly even as he feels the fear that’s stark on his own face.

“ **Tell me** ,” Jon commands, and Martin draws a shuddering gasp before it’s pulled from him by Jon’s iron, unstoppable will.

“I understand,” he says, voice trembling. And, suddenly, he does. The sweet ache of Knowing buzzes in his head as he sees himself, somewhat disorientingly, through Jon’s eyes. His Eyes. He sees the almost-halo that glows from behind his messy curls, lighting them up bronze in the dawn seeping in through the gap in the curtains. His glasses, tear-streaked and a bit foggy, sitting over eyes still red and wet with tears, his cheeks flushed a mottled pale-and-pink, his lips slick and wet from licking them obsessively. And for all that he is, all his flaws, his ugly vulnerability, he Sees himself as Jon sees him. And he is so beautiful through the eyes of the Archivist, his beloved avatar of the Ceaseless Watcher, that he stops breathing for a moment.

He draws a shuddering breath when Jon releases him, tears flowing again, and nods. “I understand,” he says again, and his voice breaks on the words with the sincerity of them.

And Jon, blessedly, gives him a smile that lights up the room. And Martin feels something broken inside him click back into place with a rightness that far outshines the comforting familiarity of loneliness that has been his companion all his life.

“I love you,” Jon whispers again, and Martin feels a laugh, a real one, bubble up from his chest before he can stop it.

“I love you too, you awful man. Using your powers against me,” he teases, offering Jon a watery grin and pulling him into a crushing hug. Jon’s grip in return is just as tight, and he laughs, too.

“You needed to See,” he says simply, and Martin just holds him closer and laughs as the sun pierces properly into the room. It lights them both up as they cling desperately to each other and ignore the weight of the dread world outside, and Martin’s chest feels spectacularly, miraculously bright with the weight of Jonathan Sims resting on it.


End file.
